A Study in Serpents
by labellavita688
Summary: One might say that the friendship between Severus Snape and Lily Evans was doomed to more than its share of difficulties from the start. A series of pivotal moments in their relationship. Canon-compliant. MWPP.
1. In Which Summer Has Not Changed Anyone

_1 September, 1973._

"Now, Severus," Lucius Malfoy's voice slid silkily out from the train compartment. "Your manners are atrocious. Do invite her in. I've been dying to meet your little..._Muggleborn_."

Facing the hall, Severus was hunched slightly in the doorway, as though the awkwardness of the situation had come to settle across his shoulders like a physical weight. His eyebrows sloped forward, knitting together, and he spoke through lips already thinned in resignation.

"Won't you...won't you come in?" he mumbled, staring fixedly at a worn-out patch of carpet by his own left shoe. Lily Evans, arms crossed tightly across her chest, made a queer sort of barking sound that might have been a laugh.

"You're joking." Her eyes narrowed. "You know I don't get on with him. I think he's a prat." She peered over Severus' shoulder into the compartment, where Lucius was smirking in genuine amusement, as though watching a scene from a marvelous play. "And he _knows_ I think he's a prat," she said, loudly enough for the other boy to hear her, scowling in at him.

Severus sighed and leaned against the doorjamb, blocking Lily's line of sight into the room beyond.

"He's not a prat." The look on her face sharpened, incredulous. "Anyway, we can take a stroll around the hall if you want," he added hurriedly. "I wouldn't mind sniffing out the snack trolley-"

Without a word, Lily had grabbed him by one skinny adolescent elbow and begun to steer him towards the other end of the car. Despite the fact that she looked halfway capable of breathing fire at the moment, Severus couldn't suppress a little shiver of delight at her touch. She stared straight ahead as she frog-marched him past doorways leaking purplish smoke - likely the result of repeated games of Exploding Snap - muffled incantations, and intermittent roars of laughter.

They stopped at the end of the car, Lily turning to stare up at him. Her scowl, fearsome though it was, could not disguise the warm prettiness of her face. Her hair tumbled past her shoulders like a wave of tinted fire, or wine made solid. Dry-mouthed, Severus found himself absorbed in searching for the right word to describe its exact color, and was consequently rather startled when Lily cleared her throat.

"I do _not_ understand it, Sev," she said jerkily, as though biting back nastier words only with extreme effort. Though this was not a question, Severus knew he was supposed to respond; however, Lily's small white hand had still not relinquished its grip on his arm, and that fact was shockingly distracting.

"Like I said, he's not so bad," Severus said, almost pleadingly. "You might...you might like him if you tried." This was a feeble lie, and they both knew it.

"Not so bad?" Lily repeated. "Not so _bad_?" She finally let go of Severus' elbow, shoving it away from her as though it had burned her. "You remember what he did to that little first-year Hufflepuff last winter? They never got his eyes properly uncrossed! Or when he knocked Greta Catchlove out with some dirty Dark jinx? It took Madame Pomfrey three weeks to put her right-"

She stopped cold, staring at something over Severus' shoulder, and a spasm of disgust crossed her face. "I should've known it was you lot, making all that racket," she said, her nose wrinkling.

Stomach sinking, already knowing who it was but unable to stop himself, Severus turned around to face James Potter and Sirius Black. The former was leaning casually against the doorjamb, his loathsome face arranged into a triumphant smirk, the latter just behind him and looking equally self-satisfied.

"Now, now, Evans, don't go acting like you didn't miss us," Potter scolded; the effect was somewhat ruined by his lazy grin. "We know you've been gutted not to see our handsome faces for two months." Lily made a derisive noise, but seemed to decide chilly silence was the best reply. Severus couldn't suppress a sneer.

"But you've got Snivellus here, too!" Black broke in delightedly, a savage grin lighting his face as he shifted his gaze to Severus. "Had a good summer? Had loads of fun skipping showers and spying on Evans from the bushes, did you?" Severus' hand had slipped into his pocket almost of its own accord, his fingers twitching toward his wand.

"Actually, Sev and I had a perfectly lovely summer," Lily said coolly, and Severus' itchy, roving fingers instantly froze. "We even went to Brighton one weekend, didn't we, Sev?" Severus felt his heart do a tingly, stuttering backflip in his chest. Potter's grin contorted into a nauseated expression, and his eyes narrowed to slits behind his glasses.

"It was brilliant," Severus said quietly, watching cold, plain dislike etch itself across Potter's face; his fingers had found his wand. Black's face was slack with unflattering disbelief, his eyes darting from Severus to Lily and back again.

"Right. Well, Evans, your taste in men runs a little greasier than I'd have expected." Potter had recovered quickly, though there was now a distinct chilliness to his words. "You might want to work on that." His smirk was back in place. "Let me know when you're in the mood to have a snog-" his eyes flicked to Severus' face, and the smirk broadened viciously. "-without having to work around that _gigantic_ beak."

Hot ripples of anger pulsed suddenly outwards from Severus' chest, an electric sensation skating down through his arms as though they were live wires. His grip on his wand tightened convulsively, reflexively, and he felt it grow warm within his hand, like it was coming to life. For one breathless second, he imagined slashing into Potter, his spell sharper than the cruelest knife, and watching the blood weep out through his thin T-shirt. Severus did not relish gore, but he thought he might make an exception; he was certain the raw, red smell would not turn his stomach if it was coming from James Potter's wounded chest...The desire to do it was large in his throat, choking and dizzying...

But _Lily_.

Whether she could sense what he was seconds from doing, or simply wanted to reassure him, he didn't know. But Lily's hand had found the crook of his elbow once more. Just the smallest squeeze, and the frightening, swollen fury went out of him like a stale breath. Yes, he thought, trying to master his racing pulse. Potter could say all he liked, but that didn't change the fact that Lily hated him deeply. He, Severus, was her friend, her confidante. Her favorite.

He tore his gaze from Potter's horrible grin, looking instead at Lily, beautiful and calm as ever. She granted him an uncertain smile, her hand still gently enclosing his arm. A second flame sputtered into life in his chest, but this time it was smaller, comforting instead of suffocating. He looked back at the two boys he so hated, the hunger shadowing their eyes. It suddenly occurred to him how badly they wanted - needed - him to react, to give them a reason to do their worst. But with Lily next to him, stoking that cheerful little fire behind his ribs, looking at him with something like hope, he couldn't, even as all of the blood in his veins roared for retaliation.

"Get bent, Potter," he snarled. "And you too, Black." It was his turn to grab Lily's arm, and as he started to walk away, he pulled her firmly along with him, back the way they'd come. "Let's find that trolley."


	2. In Which Introductions Are Made

_27 October, 1973_

"Well, Lil," Marlene McKinnon began brightly, her voice a notch higher than usual, "why don't you just wait here for him? Em and I wanted to go to Honeydukes anyway-" Her hands already splayed out on the slightly sticky table, she began to rise from her chair.

"Sit," Lily snapped, irritation flaring in her gut. She gestured to the mug sitting innocently in front of Marlene; it was still halfway full of butterbeer. "You haven't even finished your drink," she pointed out flatly. Marlene sank back down into her seat, rolling her eyes.

"Worth a shot," she muttered, snatching her mug up and taking an enormous gulp. Returning the heavy tankard to the table with a loud clunk, she leaned forward, smirking expectantly. "Well? When is His Snakeliness going to grace us with his presence?" It was Lily's turn to roll her eyes.

"Oh, honestly," she huffed. "I know some of the Slytherins are really rotten, but Sev's all right!" After all, it wasn't his fault that Lucius Malfoy had been known to practice Stinging Hexes on first-years who got lost in the dungeons, or that Violetta Bulstrode was given to Leg-Locking anyone who dared block her view of the mirror in the girls' toilet. Marlene cocked a ginger eyebrow, but didn't say anything. Lily heaved an exasperated sigh and turned to her left.

"Sev deserves a chance," she insisted, glaring pointedly at Emmeline Vance. The other witch avoided her eyes, opting instead to busy herself with a loose thread at the end of her Ravenclaw scarf. Emmeline was never one to be violently opposed to anything, but she had an unnerving habit of ignoring unpleasant situations in the hopes that they'd simply dissolve around her.

"You've never even spoken to him, have you?" Lily pressed, sensing weakness. The tops of Emmeline's round cheeks went pink, and though her gaze was still stubbornly devoted to her scarf, her head gave the tiniest lateral jerk. Lily smiled in satisfaction.

"Exactly my point!" She brandished her butterbeer in triumph, slopping a bit of foam onto the grimy tabletop. "You two just need to talk to him. He's a bit quiet, but he's sweet. And he's brilliant in Potions, Marlie, maybe you could use a tutor for-" Marlene quelled her with a glare, skepticism fairly radiating off of her like an aggressive perfume. Lily sniffed and took a sip of her half-spilt butterbeer.

"Be that way, then. I just want all my best mates to know each other, and I don't think that's asking too much," she said defensively. Marlene groaned.

"Lil, it's just-" She froze, and her face wrinkled. "He's here," she hissed through clenched teeth. Lily turned to look just in time to see the door of the Three Broomsticks swing heavily shut at Severus' back.

Seeing him in his baggy Muggle clothes for the first time since the train ride to school, it was apparent that two months of Hogwarts food had done him considerable good; he no longer looked quite so underfed, though his grey sweater still gaped noticeably around his thin neck. She felt a rush of affection as she took in his expression: the tiniest, thoughtful crease appeared between his eyebrows as he squinted, frowning, looking for her through the murky light of the pub. She raised a hand to wave, about to call out, when his black eyes found her. His face lit up, his small, serious mouth blooming instantly into a grin of such unabashed happiness that her insides gave a sudden warm squirm that had nothing to do with butterbeer.

"Hi, Sev!" Lily greeted him as he approached the table. His eyes darted nervously to Emmeline and Marlene's faces in turn, and his grin flickered. Lily beamed at him as she stuck a well-placed kick to Marlene's shin beneath the table. Less well-placed was her elbow to Emmeline's ribs; her aim was slightly off, and the other girl let loose an indignant squeal as she jabbed her somewhere near her liver.

"Wotcher," Marlene ground out, her mouth hovering just between a smile and a grimace. Lily shot her a look, and the other girl dutifully scrambled sideways on the bench, giving the spot she'd just vacated an awkward pat. "We, er, saved you a seat."

"Thanks," Severus murmured, sliding onto the bench and shaking his long, dark hair out of his face. From the look of him, it had started raining since they'd arrived. His eyes were somber again as he glanced from one unfamiliar girl to the other. "I'm Severus," he added, the hopeful note in his voice wrenching something in Lily's chest. Marlene's face still carried a steely hardness behind the unconvincing smile, and Lily was emphatically reminded that bravery was not the only trademark trait of Gryffindor. So bloody stubborn.

"I'm Emmeline," came a soft voice from Lily's left. She turned to look at her friend, and with a tingling rush of relief saw that her smile, though small, appeared genuine."I sat behind you in Charms last year." Her cheeks were still faintly pink. "You're one of Flitwick's favorites," she added, clearly admiring. Severus colored slightly, but looked pleased. Lily glanced expectantly at Marlene. The other girl sighed.

"Marlene," she introduced herself flatly, having taken to examining the tips of her long hair. "I don't remember you from class, but Lily says you're brilliant." The sarcasm in her tone was unmistakable. Lily kicked her again, while Severus went utterly scarlet. He made a spluttering noise, as though trying to gather together the syllables necessary to disagree.

"Shut it, Sev, you know you are," Lily said bracingly, her heart giving another painful throb as she took in the bewilderment on his face. "But go on, get yourself a drink. Try the butterbeer, it's good!" He nodded, still flushed, and shot off towards the bar. As soon as he was out of earshot, Lily pounced.

"What in blazes do you think you're doing?" she snarled at Marlene, who had moved on to cleaning out bits of fuzz from between the links of her silver bracelet. Her fake smile had long since faded, and she met Lily's hard gaze with a look of cold indifference. She tilted her head, then snorted, smirking mirthlessly.

"Come off it, Lil," Marlene said, her words thick with scorn. "Slytherins don't make good pets, you know."

It was like someone had replaced her blood with petrol and jabbed her veins with a lit match. She was suddenly on fire, all at once angry and wretchedly sad. Marlene was rather well-known for her sarcastic streak, even amongst the older students; she was pretty enough to get away with her cheek most of the time, but on occasion she hopped the line into cruelty. Lily had been so hoping for Severus to win her approval, hoping for him to be spared that barbed tongue, but Marlene's prejudice against Slytherin House went fathoms deep.

Seething and biting back a few choice words, Lily tore her gaze from Marlene's detached smirk and looked towards the bar. Severus was still trying to get the attention of Madam Rosmerta, who was being thoroughly distracted by a couple of fifth-year Ravenclaw boy. The barmaid was ten years out of Hogwarts if she was one, but judging by the color splashing her high cheekbones, she wasn't above a bit of adolescent flattery.

"My mother was in Slytherin," Emmeline said suddenly. Lily's head swiveled back to stare at her in shock. Her tone was light, but she was giving Marlene a hard, unsmiling look, as though daring her to say something nasty. Marlene, to her credit, had the good grace to stop smirking immediately. There was an unpleasant pause.

"Right, well, doesn't mean she's not lovely," Marlene said hastily, before burying her face in a very long pull of butterbeer. This was generally as good of an apology as one was likely to get from Marlene. Lily caught Emmeline's eye and smiled in gratitude. Though she otherwise avoided confrontation, Emmeline was one of very few people who could effectively reign Marlene in when she came over too callous. This was a useful balancing act, as Lily's temper usually got the better of her in such situations.

"The service is a bit slow here, isn't it?" Severus said breathlessly as he reappeared a moment later, clutching his own mug of butterbeer. He glanced nervously at Marlene, who looked as though she'd just been force-fed outdated milk. There wasn't the faintest attempt at a smile, but she did jerk her head curtly towards his vacated seat. Lily let out a breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding. It was a start.


	3. In Which Slytherins Enjoy Their Holiday

_22 December, 1973._

"Happy Christmas!" chirped the tiny cotton-ball snowman brightly, as it waddled across Severus' palm. Its little pebble feet bumped against the fleshy ridge below his thumb; it paused, and peered up at him with ink-spot eyes. "I'm dreaming of a white Christmas!" it exclaimed, flapping its toothpick arms with enthusiasm. Severus prodded its belly morosely, but the snowman only repeated itself, with the same unbridled joy. Lily's Charms work was, as ever, flawless.

Severus had woken that morning to find the snowman perched on his bedside table, cheerfully humming "God Rest Ye, Merry Hippogriffs" from within its green tissue wrappings. Lily had included a note saying that since she couldn't stay at Hogwarts over Christmas break, she had charmed the snowman to act in her stead, or, as she had put it, "provide you with enough Yuletide cheer to choke a mountain troll". She'd also gotten him a rather enormous box of Honeydukes' peanut butter fudge, "as the snowman's not a proper gift, anyway".

He had tried in vain to talk her into spending the holiday at Hogwarts. His father, true to form, had vanished again a few days into December, and his mother had told Severus sadly that he might as well stay and enjoy the festivities at school, as on her own she wouldn't be able to afford both his gift and a decent Christmas supper. Luckily for him, several of his housemates were also remaining at the castle, though he doubted their reasons were quite as wretched as his own.

A large-knuckled hand appeared suddenly in front of Severus' face, startling him so badly he nearly crushed Lily's gift. A cut crystal glass, filled a third of the way with something amber-colored, was dangling from the fat fingers.

"Oi," said a thick voice just behind him, no doubt speaking around a mouthful of something nicked from the kitchens. "Have a drink with me, Snape." Severus grabbed the glass, mostly to stop it bouncing into his nose. He turned slightly in the leather chair, looking upward. Reginald Nott, a heavyset fifth-year Beater for the House Quidditch team, was staring down at him, his dark eyes slightly glassy.

Severus sniffed Nott's generous donation, and nearly gagged; it smelled like wet firewood doused in mouthwash, and he was fairly certain the fumes had actually set his sinus cavity on fire. "What is it?" he asked warily, blinking as his eyes watered.

"Put a bit of peppermint schnapps in with Firewhiskey," Nott said, shrugging, as he walked around to stand in front of the chair. "Tastes like dragon dung, but it does the trick." Severus couldn't fathom what would possess a person to do such a thing, but he simply nodded as though he knew the first thing about recreational drinking. His father had let him have half a bottle of hard cider on his birthday the previous winter, but that had been sweet and fizzy and wonderful; he had a feeling that sampling the unholy mixture of liquors in his hand would have almost nothing in common with that experience.

"Your health," Nott said with a grin, knocking his own glass firmly against the one clutched in Severus' hand. "Bottoms up!" Severus tried to smile back at him, but managed only a sort of terrified grimace. He lifted the drink to his lips, intending to take only the tiniest of sips, but then Nott's hand was beneath it, tipping the glass upward and sending its noxious contents shooting downwards into his startled mouth.

He felt like he had taken a gulp of jet fuel, or clamped his mouth around the tailpipe of a car, or perhaps swallowed the sun. It was quite different from piping hot soup or fresh tea; not only did it burn horribly, but the sensation felt as though it were actually growing. For one clammy moment, he considered vomiting, but he told himself to think of it as just another dramatically unpleasant-tasting potion, like some awful relation of Pomfrey's best Pepperup. He swallowed hard and squinted, wincing as the liquor snaked hotly down into his stomach, and started to cough. Nott roared with laughter and clapped him on the shoulder.

"Good, eh?" he said proudly. "I think I'll call it a Peppermint Fireball." Severus could only nod, saved from having to weigh in on such a name by his own hacking and sputtering. Just then, a sixth-year prefect whom Severus was reasonably sure was called Siobhan Harrigan walked into the dim, greenish light of the common room. She took one look at the two others, clutching their glasses and, in Severus' case, swaying slightly, before her rather pretty face hardened into a scowl. "What have you got there, Nott?"

Nott was the portrait of innocence. "Nothing," he said, with what he seemed to think was a winning smile. It was technically true, as their glasses were both empty and he hadn't brought the liquor bottles out with him, but Siobhan did not look won over in the least. Her eyes slitted as she walked over to them.

"What did you give him?" she asked flatly, gesturing to Severus, but glaring at Nott. The other boy didn't say anything, instead staring determinedly at his feet, gnawing at his lower lip, and otherwise looking very guilty. Siobhan huffed in annoyance, and bent down to examine Severus; she still wore a deep frown, but her eyes softened the slightest bit as she looked at him.

"Did Nott give you something to drink?"

Severus was beginning to feel a bit lightheaded, but the fire tracking from mouth to gut had faded to a pleasant warmth, and though on any normal day a confrontation with a prefect would've given him arrhythmia, at just that moment he was struggling not to find her prickly seriousness rather funny. He thought it might be amusing if he answered "pumpkin juice", because it was so clearly not what he had been drinking, but his lips were suddenly feeling sort of numb, and he thought it might be best if he stayed silent.

Siobhan took a sharp, deliberate sniff of the air in front of his open mouth. Her eyes flashed in recognition, and she straightened up at once. "You gave liquor to a third-year?" she hissed, jabbing her finger into Nott's broad, solid chest. Nott opened and closed his mouth without uttering a sound; he looked as though his brain was working furiously, and seemed unaccustomed to such exertion. After a tense moment, Siobhan's nostrils flaring and Severus fighting a sudden mad desire to collapse into giggles, Nott found his voice.

"No! I mean, well, yeah...but it's Christmas!" His tone was equal parts panic and tentative reproach. "You can't really want to dock points from your own House on Christmas."

"It's not Christmas yet, Nott," she countered tartly, crossing her arms. "Give me one reason, one good reason, why I shouldn't."

Nott looked stumped, and shot a glance down at Severus. He had been watching the proceedings with detached interest, but at this gave the older boy a silly grin that he hoped communicated his complete inability to assist in any way.

But something seemed to click into place in Nott's thick skull then, because he suddenly grinned, wide and lazy and confident. "Because, Harrigan, I know how much you love peppermint."

* * *

><p>Severus had never particularly wondered what kind of miserable existence a bag of wet sand might lead, but the following morning he found himself quite able to give an educated guess.<p>

He woke at half ten, sprawled limply in the rigid, dispassionate embrace of his dormitory's stone floor. The cold had numbed him in several places: his cheek, where it flattened against the ground; his ear, cushioned only slightly by the black sheet of his hair; his exposed hip, as his ill-fitting sweater had ridden up to bunch at his waist. After several hazy moments spent mentally locating his various tingly and deadened body parts, he decided to attempt to sit up.

He peeled his face off of the ground, pushing himself upright with his hands, one of which was strangely sore. As he straightened his torso, the world swung dangerously left, and he scrunched his eyes shut in nauseous panic. One deep breath, two deep breaths. Once the ground seemed to have settled back into place, he opened his eyes and looked back down at his right hand. The knuckles were an angry, mottled mess of red and purple, shot through with delicate lines of dried blood here and there. He flexed his hand into a fist and inhaled sharply, nausea spiking through him again, as his tender skin stretched and pulled over what could very well have been a fracture or two.

Panting slightly, he struggled to his feet on limbs that felt like water. The room around him spasmed in warning, and he found the wall with his shoulder in case things went crooked again. He cast about the empty dormitory with bleary eyes; it looked as though he had scarcely made it through the doorway last night before he had crumpled to the ground like a sack of laundry. He waited another moment before moving again, wanting to be certain that fickle gravity was going to stay put for the time being.

He turned to look back through the doorway, and his stomach gave a sickly jolt as he spotted a suspicious-looking puddle in the shadows of the hall. Now that he thought about it, he did remember being rather spectacularly ill at the end of the night. Most of the Firewhiskey had ended up in Nott's ironclad belly, but a small amount of it seemed to have found a temporary home here, most likely after Severus' body had vehemently disagreed with the decision to try another Peppermint Fireball.

Severus fumbled for his wand, finding it poking out of the back pocket of his pants and thankfully in one piece. He vanished the puddle with a slightly raspy "_Scourgify_" and let out a long breath that rattled his lungs on its way out, reminding him sharply of his one or two spluttering drags off of a Coyle's No-Stink Cigar. He stumped over to his bed on rubber legs, and flopped down onto the mattress with a sigh.

After snuggling his way under the blanket, he began to sleepily piece together the shards of his evening. An hour after his first drink, Severus had found himself losing horribly and repeatedly at a drinking game Siobhan and Nott had taught him. He wasn't entirely sure he ever actually understood the rules, but as each loss was lubricated by a large gulp of schnapps, he had found it difficult to care much either way. The three of them had been joined at some point by a mousy fourth-year boy who he was sure had not introduced himself, and a girl in Siobhan's year named Judith.

In retrospect, Nott had been entirely correct about Siobhan's decided weakness for peppermint liquor; after five rounds, she had become every bit as warm and giggly as she had been hard-nosed and severe an hour before. Her face shone out bright and pink between the curtains of her cinnamon hair, laughing loudly and often. Severus remembered noting, as though from a pleasantly detached spot a little farther into his own skull than usual, that Nott had done quite a bit of staring at Siobhan's transformation, though much of the time he was a blink away from cross-eyed.

After they tired of the card game, there had been several rounds of "Merlin Knows I've Never", accompanied by endless choruses of laughter. Severus had stayed very quiet, more than happy to observe the older students' attempts to embarrass each other with increasingly outlandish and graphic claims. That game, too, had ended, after Siobhan had gotten Nott to admit that he had once shagged a girl from Hogsmeade who refused to take off her balaclava the entire time; this confession had so infected the group with giggles that they could scarcely sip their drinks, much less come up with anything better.

Despite the mutinous churning of Severus' stomach and the unsteadiness in his legs, a sense of debauched contentment settled into his bones as he reviewed the night. He had certainly not expected invitations to carouse with much older, much more popular students when he had settled on spending the holidays at school. If this was how his Housemates spent the days leading up to Christmas, he wondered what kind of magnificent trouble they could get into on the day itself.

But a small, wormlike thread of doubt suddenly began to wriggle about beneath his warm feeling of acceptance. What had he done to his hand? Surely he hadn't gotten in a fight? His knuckles were on fire with the hot, stinging itch of hours-old wounds, and his stomach flipped over as he examined the rust-colored scabs . He had the sardonic thought that it was a good thing he had a couple of weeks to heal before he'd have to write any essays, as his quill hand was currently one large, clumsy bruise.

He let his hand fall back to the bed, letting out a hiss of pain as it made contact with the scratchy wool blanket. His eyes probed the shadows veiling the inside of his green canopy, as though the explanation for his injury hid just out of sight. As he turned the events of the past twelve hours over in his mind, he realized there was a bit of an ill-tempered haze over part of the night...The doubt-worm was swiftly growing to the size of a garter snake...

He seized on a confused image of Nott's face, his mind catching it with what felt like the tips of uncoordinated fingers. Nott had been very flushed from the whiskey, of course, but it wasn't only whiskey that had hardened his eyes to chips of onyx, with thick eyebrows hooded over them in anger. He had been saying something about...Judith? It was a girl, Severus was sure of it. Did Judith take the last of the whiskey after all?

And then it exploded into his mind like shattered lightning. _Lily_.

* * *

><p><em>"That Harrigan's a bit of all right, i'n't she?" Nott was slurring noticeably now, staring across the dimly lit common room with a slack kind of smile on his face; Siobhan had fallen asleep in one of the large leather armchairs flanking the fireplace, her body a jumbled heap topped with auburn curls.<em>

_Severus nodded, then felt his own mouth curve slightly. "I do like redheads," he admitted; he was slurring his words, too, joining them together, as though he were pronouncing the connective swirls in cursive writing. Nott swiveled his head to give Severus a highly amused grin._

_"Oh? Sounds like little Snape has a crush!" he exclaimed, his words brimming with whiskey-tinted delight. Though Severus' face was already painted vibrant pink with liquor, he could feel blood surging into his cheeks._

_"I do not," he mumbled, wishing he still had a drink to hide behind. Instead, he began picking at a crusted bit of mud on the rug with clumsy fingers, avoiding Nott's gaze._

_"Oh, come on then, out with it!" Nott said cheerfully, pounding Severus between the shoulder-blades so hard that he coughed. "It's all right, I won't tell anybody," he added, clearly trying to give him a brotherly wink; his facial muscles, however, no longer seemed to be entirely under his control, and he just ended up squinting with both eyes._

_Severus remained stonily silent, but this did not exasperate Nott; rather, he seemed to enjoy trying to parse out this new riddle. He ran through a litany of Slytherin girls, ranging from sulky, glamorous seventh-years all the way down to first-years who still couldn't find the Defense classroom without a guide. Severus grunted at each wrong guess, until finally Nott lolled his head back and let out a hearty groan. In the end, Severus couldn't fathom what made him decide to respond; perhaps he was just tired, or maybe a little part of him wanted to brag about his friendship with the prettiest girl in third year._

_"She's not in Slytherin," he said slowly. Nott raised an eyebrow at him. "Name's Evans."_

_Nott's forehead wrinkled. "Evans? Don't know her. She related to anyone?" Severus shook his head and licked his lips, which were suddenly feeling dry and rather thick._

_"She's...she's Muggleborn," he almost whispered, and as soon as the words were out, he knew with terrible certainty that he never, ever should have said them. Their effect on Nott was instantaneous; though a second ago he had been lazing about on the carpet, limbs loose in his drunken stupor, he went entirely rigid, and he scowled so quickly and so hard that it looked like it hurt._

_A million excuses rose like bile in Severus' throat. She's brilliant in school, she's great at magic, she's beautiful, her family are idiots, she's adopted, he was joking... Which would it be? He couldn't say any of them, though; his throat felt as though it had swollen shut. He blinked, time stuttered slightly, and suddenly they were both standing, Nott bellowing in his face, flecking his heated skin with spittle, eyes ablaze._

_"A filthy Mudblood?" he spat, his hands balled into trembling fists at his sides. "Out of all the girls at Hogwarts, you're off fancying some swotty Muggle?" Nott swayed slightly on his feet, sneering. "You make me sick."_

_Severus felt as though his feet had grown into the rug. He couldn't move, couldn't speak, could only stand immobilized in horror: horror at himself for tossing out his most heavily protected secret so casually; horror at Nott's frightening, feral reaction; horror that no words of defense for his friend were materializing in his slack-jawed mouth._

_"She's-" he began lamely, his alcohol-sodden brain twisting and constricting in his skull with the effort of piecing together the proper description. He suddenly felt very cold._

_"She's a slaggy bit of rubbish!" Nott roared, eyes bulging, looking quite mad for a moment. Severus felt an icy jolt race through him, and all at once he was shouting back; a string of savage obscenities tripped off of his tongue like bits of hot lead, his muscles coiling painfully in preparation to either strike Nott or defend his own body, whichever came first._

_"DON'T YOU EVER – DON'T YOU _EVER_-" He was screaming himself hoarse and incoherent, and Nott got a very ugly look on his face, a dangerous look. Severus was gripped with the sudden knowledge that if he did not leave right that very moment, Nott would break his nose. Or worse. Though his every nerve burned with resentment, Severus spun on his heel and ran from the room, breathing through what felt like needles of fire. He stumbled blindly into the hallway that led to his dormitory, unbearably tense and shaking so hard that he thought he might rip himself apart. He stopped halfway to the door, chest heaving, feeling as though he would choke on the expanding throb of his own pulse._

_Lily was Muggleborn, but she was good, and kind, and beautiful, and smart. Her blood status didn't matter. How could it? Nott himself could barely stand a cauldron the right way up. But Severus knew many of his classmates felt differently. The only pure blood was wizarding blood, they would say, as though it were the most obvious thing in the world. It shouldn't be mixed._

_An image of Lily's snowman flickered into his mind. It was probably crushed under an unconscious form somewhere in the common room by now, murmuring Christmas carols into someone's navel, but it had been so brilliant. How could anyone think Lily wasn't perfect just the way she was? A fresh wave of fury broke over him, his teeth almost chattering with it, and though the hall was scarcely lit, he could tell his vision was darkening; even as he was filling up and pulsating with anger, the alcohol was catching up with him._

_With a strangled yell, Severus slammed a fist into the wall at his side, and there was no pain, just a sense of brutal satisfaction as his knuckles met the unyielding stone once, twice, three times. He pulled away and stared at the wall, drawing quick, ragged breaths; he'd wanted to crack it, dent it somehow, though he dimly supposed that was impossible. But he had left a mark: a shimmering smear of blood, jewel-bright against the slate. Severus could almost have smiled, but at just that moment he was drowned in the overwhelming urge to be sick across the hallway._

_A moment later, panting and trembling, he managed to drag himself through the threshold of his dormitory. His last thought before collapsing into a clammy, sweating heap was a fervent promise never to accept anything from Nott again._


	4. In Which Cold, Hard Facts Are Examined

**A/N: Sorry for the massive delay in posting! I had the hardest time getting this part started for some reason, but (fingers crossed) I think I've gotten past the blockage. Hopefully I'll have another chapter or two up by the end of 2011!  
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**Enjoy! And as always, a) I make no money off of this, as I am not JKR, and b) my real reward is feedback from my lovely readers ;)**

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><p><em>1 June, 1974<em>

"Oi, Evans!" James Potter flopped down beside Lily on one of the Gryffindor table's wooden benches, wearing an expression of exaggerated concern. "I'm guessing no one's told you."

Lily, who had blotted her parchment in surprise upon finding her solitude abruptly ended, scowled and dabbed at the ink with the edge of a napkin. "Told me what, Potter?"

The boy inched his head forward and sideways over the table, craning around until he was almost squarely positioned over her Potions revision, and therefore blocking her line of sight; his solicitous expression had evaporated, replaced with a broad grin.

"It's Saturday."

Lily rolled her eyes and pointed to the timetable beside her, a light veil of hasty script tracking across most of the page. "I am fully aware of that," she countered icily. "But it's something of an epiphany for you, I'd imagine." Potter's grin didn't so much as waver. He shook his head and helped himself to a glass of pumpkin juice.

"No need to get shirty, Evans. Just wondering why you're spending such a brilliant day in here, instead of out there." He gestured towards the nearest window with his goblet. The long pane seemed scarcely able to hold back the glittering swell of June sunlight, and a sky so blue it almost hurt to look at. Lily hated the little pang that spasmed through her at that moment. It was easily the most beautiful day of the year thus far, and she was spending it in the Great Hall with a scant handful of other students, poring over books.

"Because we're sitting our Potions final in two days, that's why," she said firmly, reminding herself as much as Potter. It wasn't as though all the sun and clear sky were going to be used up that day, after all; summer was so close that one could taste it on the air.

"Ah, Evans," Potter sighed, shaking his head again. "You _saint_."

The familiar heat of annoyance prickled along her skin. Trust bloody Potter to trot in, with his absolute yawning abyss of a work ethic, and try to make _her_ feel like the one with mismanaged priorities. Jaw tight, she measured her words with care, knowing that if she gave in to his needling, she might as well bid farewell to a productive afternoon.

"Time is money, Potter, shouldn't you be off feeding a first-year to a toilet somewhere?" Potter only laughed and drained the remainder of his pumpkin juice in one noisy gulp.

"We don't spend enough time chumming around, you and me." His grin was at full wattage. "Maybe some of those brains'll rub off on me, eh?"

Lily kept her mouth resolutely closed, and attempted to calm the slight simmer beginning in her blood by focusing once more on her revision. She had only been halfway through rewriting her Potions notes when she'd gained her unwelcome companion, and her concentration had since been a bit shaken. As she stared at the list of ingredients for a Shrinking Solution, she realized she'd already read through it three times; nothing was sticking. James Potter might as well have Transfigured her brain into a funnel, for all the good his presence was doing.

_Thud_. Lily's head snapped up at the noise, and she let out a slow breath. Thank Merlin. Severus was standing across from her, a small tower of textbooks sitting on the table between his outstretched hands.

"Hi, Sev!" she greeted, giving him her warmest smile. She watched his eyes flit from her face to her housemate's, narrowing. "Potter was just leaving," she added quickly.

"Oh, no. I don't think I'll be doing any such thing, Evans," Potter drawled, leaning on the table; he propped his chin up on his hand, looking perfectly comfortable. His usual lazy smirk was in place, casual as ever, but there was a distinct gleam of excitement in his eyes. "Have a seat, Snivellus!"

The first faint traces of a flush were blooming in Severus' cheeks, and he remained standing, his whole body gone rigid. Lily had a moment of furious indecision: should they get up and go study elsewhere? Or would that be too great of a concession to Potter, letting him uproot them like that? The prat.

"It's okay, Sev," she said, struggling to keep her voice even. "The library might be crowded today, but I'm sure we could find an empty classroom-"

Severus seemed to have been having the same internal debate as Lily, though he reached a different conclusion: wordlessly, he dropped onto the bench, grabbed the top book in his stack, and began to thumb through the pages. His face was almost perfectly blank, but for his slightly flared nostrils; quick, shallow breaths stirred the strands of his long hair as he leaned forward.

"What have you already looked at today?" he asked quietly, eyes trained on his copy of _Magical Drafts and Potions. _Lily, who had been watching this display in surprise, gave her head a little shake.

"Er...well, I was _trying_ to memorize what goes into a Shrinking Solution, but that was going about as well as you'd expect." It felt as though every square centimeter of her skin tightened slightly with the effort of not glaring at Potter as she said this.

Severus' lips quirked upwards the tiniest bit. "It's a tricky one," he conceded, flipping quickly through his book, until he landed on the right page. He ran a long finger down the list of ingredients, and Lily couldn't help but shake her head as she got a good look at his text, smiling slightly herself. As always, Severus had filled the book's margins with little diagrams, row upon row of his spiky handwriting butting up against the printed words.

"What a bloody _mess_!" Potter said loudly. Severus bent just the slightest bit lower over his book, tucking his bottom lip behind his teeth; the tension in his body couldn't have been more obvious if it had manifested itself as visible light. "I expect there's lots of helpful notes in there. _Don't let hair touch potion; grease not an ingredient_."

"This from the boy who managed to singe his eyebrows off just last week!" Lily snapped, heat sweeping through her instantly; she couldn't stop herself from jerking her eyes up to his. "You do know a Swelling Solution isn't supposed to actually _explode_?"

Potter only smirked, and Lily figured it had been a wasted effort to bring up that particular incident: he and Sirius Black had recounted the tale numerous times in the common room that night, utterly unashamed of their terrible schoolwork. In fact, they had seemed rather proud of themselves, though Black had bemoaned the fact that they hadn't written down their mistakes, letting a perfectly good recipe for explosives go to waste.

Lily huffed out a breath and returned to her notes. "Pathetic," she muttered, trying to focus on the parchment in front of her. _Mince flesh of one large shrivelfig, skinned, and add to mixture, stirring-_

"Speaking of pathetic!" Potter said suddenly; Lily gritted her teeth as she lost her place once again. "You're tutoring Evans now, eh, Snivellus? Reckon it's a bit of a hopeless case, is it?"

Blood rushed to Lily's cheeks so quickly they felt scalded. She would never have referred to her study sessions with Severus as _tutoring_; that would involve admitting that her Potions work was woefully sub-par. Rather, she'd regarded their arrangement as a kind of symbiosis; neither of them could really be called the tutor if they were both learning, could they? Severus, with his innate talent for finding the most efficient route to a perfect result, would share his expertise with her, since she was prone to tripping up over the minutiae. Lily, on the other hand, would look over his essays, especially those for History of Magic, as Severus was absolutely dreadful with remembering both dates and semicolons.

She risked a glance at him, and was surprised to see his eyebrows slung low over narrowed eyes,his thin mouth twisted into a scowl.

"She's a far sight better than you, Potter," he spat, glowering at the other boy. "Far as I know, she's never set anyone on _fire_."

Potter looked anything but abashed; on the contrary, a wistful smile slipped onto his face. "Oh, yeah. Charms, fall of '72." His eyes glinted. "It was some nasty Slytherin, wasn't it? One of your mates?" He laughed sharply. "Wait, no. You haven't got any mates."

Lily's pulse sped up in an instant, suddenly so loud that it flooded into her ears, frantic and almost claustrophobic. Her body was in motion before she could think, and she was up out of her seat, slapping her palms hard against the table. The desire to shout swelled within her chest, but her voice strangled in the throb of her heartbeat. She couldn't even look at Severus; something that felt oddly like pity was coiling around her heart like searing-hot rope, and she couldn't bear to glimpse the misery she knew she would see in his eyes. She looked at Potter instead.

Unrepentant glee shone from his every feature, and her stomach turned over. She glared at him, unable to think of a single thing to say, her hands tingling with the desire to smack the cruel smile off of his face.

"Come on, Sev." She was finally able to expel the words, but her voice caught slightly in her throat. "Slughorn's always trying to get me to join his little club, he'll probably die on the spot if we ask to study in his room." She stared down at her books, gathering them with lightly trembling hands. There were no noises from across the table, no muffled thump of heavy books closing or rustle of cloth on cloth. The knot in her chest contracted sharply. Against her better judgment, she had to glance up at Severus.

"Come _on_, Sev," she said again, a strange desperation bleeding into her words, dropping her voice low to keep it steady. There was another painful squeeze in her chest when she saw that his dark eyes were bright, with a telltale glimmer along the rim of his lower lids. Save that, his face was a controlled void, empty and colorless as canvas. He nodded, barely, and stood, jumbling his books together into his arms. The two of them began to walk quickly away, though they were careful not to run.

"Aww, don't go!" Potter shouted after them; the insincere groan in his voice was positively theatrical. "I love our little chats!"

* * *

><p>"No, no, you've got to make sure the daisy roots are all the same size," Severus corrected Lily gently. He grabbed one of the fibrous bundles, still lightly coated in soil, and chopped it into even thirds. "Like this."<p>

Lily nodded, inching her foot across the slick dungeon floor behind her; finding the leg of her chair, she dragged it close and dropped into it. She let her breath out slowly, trying to pay attention. They'd been rid of Potter for an hour, but the potent combination of fury and secondhand embarrassment he'd evoked had left her feeling drained. Severus, on the other hand, seemed to have mostly recovered; he was no longer quite so pale, anyway. Immersed in his favorite subject, he scarcely even looked like the same boy from earlier. She watched him as he carefully swept her clumsy handiwork into a pile.

"Okay, now, these go in all at once. And then you're going to-" He consulted the notes crowded at the side of the page. "-well, the book says to stir anticlockwise for thirty seconds, but I find that you only really need to go round ten times to get the same effect."

Lily gathered the delicate roots into her hands. When she dropped them into the cauldron, her potion bubbled slightly and let off a puff of fragrant pinkish steam, almost like a sigh. Severus gave her an encouraging smile. She did as he had instructed, stirring the mixture ten times; with a faint pop, it brightened from dark blue to electric green.

"There you go, you've got it!" Severus congratulated her, face still lit with a rare grin. Lily smiled weakly; somehow it made her even sadder to see him genuinely celebrating her minor success. How could he be so upbeat, after what Potter had said? Surely she wasn't the only one stung by the small grain of truth it had contained?

She knew Severus wasn't particularly well-liked. Being on the cusp of their teenage years, the third years were constantly vying for one another's attention in every way possible, whether by foolishly attempting to sass their professors or jinxing each others' hair orange. Despite the fact that their personalities consisted of little else besides an enormous mean streak, Potter and Black were very popular, their antics occasionally making even McGonagall's stern frown waver. Someone like Severus, who actively sought the peace and solitude of the sidelines, was a poorly-understood anomaly; she'd heard his shyness interpreted by more than one of her housemates as snobbishness. Not to mention, his excellent marks in most of his classes didn't help matters, either.

She watched as Severus stirred her potion, his smile easing into a look of placid concentration. He drew up a ladleful of liquid and let it slowly trickle down into the cauldron again. "The consistency's right. We've just got to test it on something to be sure," he murmured. He glanced up at her. "That is, if you want to. It _looks_ perfect." His cheeks were slightly ruddy now, probably from standing over the warmth of the simmering cauldron.

"Oh, that's all right, Sev, I haven't got anything with me anyway." She shoved aside her maudlin thoughts, trying to reciprocate his cheerfulness. "You're a good teacher! I'm sure it's fine." Severus went even redder.

"You're not bad at this stuff, you know," he said hastily. "I think you just sometimes expect it to be more like Charms, like you've got to be quick about everything." His face shone with another shy smile. "When you take your time, you do fine."

Lily blinked, feeling herself blush. "I - thanks." Resisting the urge to tell him that any skill in the area was likely due to his intervention, she cleared her throat. "Well, I should be getting back upstairs, I promised Em I'd help her practice her Cheering Charms." The slightest shadow crossed Severus' face. Lily's heart constricted, reminding her that the tangle of pity in her chest had not yet gone away.

"She always bungs it up, I end up moping for hours. It's embarrassing, or else I'd invite you along," she said quickly. Though Emmeline truly had no issues with Lily and Severus' friendship, Lily wasn't sure if her goodwill would extend to inviting Severus to crash their study session.

"I'll see you later, though! I might have to ask you to brew me something to settle my stomach before the final," she said lightly. Severus opened his mouth to protest, but Lily laughed. "Don't argue! Yes, I like yours better; Pomfrey's always tastes like shoe polish, which doesn't really help matters." He looked so pleased that she couldn't help but feel the knot loosen, just a little.

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><p>"<em>Thank<em> you for helping me, Lil," Emmeline gushed, grinning widely as she peered around the empty classroom. Her cheeks were normally a bit rosy, but under the influence of a Cheering Charm she looked almost feverish. She clasped her hands together beneath her chin. "I mean it! You're brill." She paused, then began giggling, presumably having realized that she'd just rhymed.

"Looks like I overdid it," Lily noted morosely, regarding her wand with an unwarranted level of disappointment. "That's almost as bad as what you've done to me, Em. I felt better than this the day my dog died."

She knew it was a side effect of Emmeline's poor wandwork, but she felt as though she were mired in a deep pit of misery, thoughts of that afternoon sucking her down by the ankles. _You haven't got any mates_. She couldn't rid herself of the image of Severus' stricken face, or of the feeling that an iron fist had reached into her chest, closed around whatever it found there, and twisted. Hard.

Emmeline, oblivious to Lily's despondency, giggled again. "I'm sorry! I'm sorry." She squared her shoulders and cleared her throat, seemingly trying to shake off the spell. "That's why I asked for your help. I think it's my wrist movement-"

"I _know_ it's your wrist movement," Lily said dully. "That's what I've been trying to tell you." She heaved a sigh, knowing she should run up to the tower before supper and have someone cast a proper charm on her before she actually offended any of her friends, but her pervasive sense of gloom had sapped her energy. "It should wear off in the next hour or so. I'd recommend avoiding Marlie when you go down to eat, though, unless you fancy sitting exams with one eye swollen shut." To the surprise of exactly no one, Marlene's famously short temper did not improve with the addition of academic stress. Emmeline clamped her lips shut, visibly attempting to hold back a fresh wave of laughter. She nodded and hummed in agreement.

The two girls focused their efforts on a couple of other spells, one of which Emmeline actually began to show marked improvement in casting, when their respective moods began to even out. Unfortunately, seeing as Lily had not been entirely chipper to begin with, she couldn't quite muster her usual enthusiasm for her favorite subject.

"Much better," she said, with an attempt at a smile, as her friend's successful Engorgement Charm grew a spare knut to the size of a small saucer in her open palm. Emmeline looked pleased with herself, but her grin faded after a moment. She cocked her head, regarding Lily with her blue eyes slightly narrowed.

"What's wrong?"

Lily's smile must not have been too convincing. Bloody Ravenclaws, too observant for their own good. She shook her head vehemently. "It's nothing. Long day. You know how I get around finals."

Emmeline's mouth set into a grim line. "Don't be thick. You read Charms books for _fun. _I've never seen you fail to get at least a little excited over the topic before. We're not eating til you tell me." To illustrate her point, she perched resolutely atop the nearest desk, legs and arms crossed. "Go ahead."

Lily sighed and sank into the chair beside her. "Just, you know, the usual Potter rubbish, being rude to me and Sev." Her knot gave a pointed throb. "He made a crack about Sev not having any friends." Emmeline's probing look softened.

"Potter's a git," she said, frowning. "Anything for a laugh, even if it's just him laughing."

"But Sev was so _gutted_," Lily whispered, her voice dissolving at the back of her throat. "You should've seen him." The tightness in her chest wrenched sharply, and she tried not to picture his face again.

"There's not a lot you can do about that," Emmeline said bracingly. "The two of them just don't get on. And, you know-" She looked suddenly uncomfortable. "Snape gives as good as he gets, sometimes."

It felt as though a cold stone had slipped down into Lily's stomach. "That's not true!" She glared at the other girl. "Sev might snap at him, but he would never go _looking_ for Potter just to – to toss out some insult he'd been cooking up all day!"

"That's what's going on, is it?" Emmeline gave her a measured look. "Did Potter come over before or after Sev met up with you?"

"Before, but I don't see-"

"And you can't think of any reason Potter would try and hang around you all the time, and pick fights with the only other bloke who does?"

Lily thought she knew what Emmeline was getting at, and was so taken aback by the stunning, blunt-edged wrongness of this theory that a genuine laugh burst out before she could stop it.

"You _can't_ mean Potter fancies me." She stared at her friend, halfway to smiling. Emmeline loved riddles and roundabout sort of jokes; she might have been indulging in a bit of teasing to let off some steam . "Very funny, Em." Emmeline didn't say a word; she returned Lily's incredulous gaze calmly, arching one eyebrow.

"Ah, that Cheering Charm really _did_ go wrong, didn't it?" Lily said tartly. "What a shame, you've gone mental right before exams. Bet they'll kick you out of Ravenclaw for that."

Emmeline rolled her eyes. "Really, Lil, this has never crossed your mind before?"

Lily couldn't think of a response, reeling slightly at the suggestion. Truthfully? No, she'd never entertained the notion that James Potter, as perpetually irritating and ever-present as a stray bit of gravel in her shoe, had any earthly reason for behaving like such a tremendous prat all the time. He was just...Potter. The smirking idiot who flicked rats' spleens into her hair during Potions. Did Emmeline really expect her to believe that every interrupted meal, every exaggerated romantic overture, every insult hurled at Severus, was because Potter _fancied_ her?

It was the most ludicrous thing she'd ever heard.

"No, it has not. Like I said, sorry about the charm and all, but you've clearly lost it," Lily said dismissively, standing up and smoothing nonexistent wrinkles from the front of her skirt. Emmeline smirked and hopped off her desk, shaking her head in a resigned, infuriating sort of way.

"Let's get to supper, I've worked up an appetite listening to your mad theories. What's next, a torrid love affair between McGonagall and Flitwick?"


	5. In Which Tea Is Taken Very Cold

**Uh, well, looks like my goal of posting this before the end of the year didn't pan out. Whoops. I promise to do better. **

**Enjoy, read, review, etc. :)  
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**Disclaimer: I wish they were mine, but alas, they are not. **

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><p><em>18 July, 1974<em>

"One lump or two, dear?"

Eileen Snape looked expectantly at Lily as she leaned over the sugar bowl, dangling a pair of tongs from her bony fingers. She had Severus' deep black-brown eyes, though there was a haunting flatness in them reminiscent of empty tunnels. Long years of worry and grief had stolen the softness from her cheeks and mouth, leaving her narrow face looking almost crowded with bones and angles, the sunken spots creating shadows in her otherwise pale skin. It was obvious enough that she had never been beautiful, but her hair was still as glorious as it must have been when she was young, thick and shining as a sheet of dark water.

"Three, actually. If you don't mind." Lily blushed, and Severus felt his lips twitch into a smile. Lily seldom drank tea, but when she did, she did such things to it that it could scarcely even be considered the same beverage. He took his own tea with a splash of milk, and no sugar at all; something about the clean, herbal bitterness put him in a mind of some sort of fortifying potion, the more astringent the better.

Eileen stirred three snow-white sugar cubes into Lily's cup, before handing it over to her with a little nod and the barest curve of her thin lips. Lily returned her smile and took a small sip.

"Perfect, thank you," she said shyly.

Though Severus always found her pretty, today she was radiant. English summer had burnt a fair few freckles across her nose and cheeks, the ruddy contrast making her eyes look greener and brighter than ever. The humidity had coaxed tendrils of her burgundy hair out of its loose plait, gently curling around her face like a feathered halo. She was wearing a sundress the exact shade of a new sunflower, and it flattered her so well that Severus was uncomfortably aware of the fact that she was starting to resemble a young woman more than the knobbly-kneed preteen she'd always been. She couldn't have looked more like the embodiment of pure, nourishing light if she'd tried.

He also couldn't help but notice how sun-starved and shrunken his mother looked in contrast. His father had deigned to stumble his way back home sometime in March, and Eileen appeared not to have taken in a square meal since. Her skin had developed a kind of translucency that made Severus' heart thud painfully against his ribs; his eyes could trace the delicate web of her veins down each arm with ease.

Jerking his gaze back to his cup, Severus took a hasty gulp of his tea, and it stayed hot as it tracked all the way down into his stomach; he held back a cough, but the scorching sensation was almost a comfort. It was an unseasonably cool day on Spinner's End. Having rained all night, water was curdled on the pavement like chilled sweat, and though it was now early afternoon, the morning's mist still veiled the neighbors' modest houses from view.

"Severus tells me you're quite the star pupil," Eileen remarked with another fragile smile; she stirred her tea continuously, though she never raised the cup to her lips. "What's your favorite class?"

"Oh! _Sev_," Lily murmured reproachfully, coloring once more, but she looked pleased. "Well, I enjoy them all, of course. But I suppose Charms is my strongest subject."

"She's being modest, Mum. She's top of the class. Flitwick even lets her try and learn upper-level spells for extra credit." Lily tutted loudly, but Severus could only grin. "They never seem to give her too much trouble."

A flutter of warmth crossed Eileen's face, and her eyes lit for the briefest of moments.

"I was a pretty good hand at Charms, myself," she said, somewhat wistfully. "I used to charm my own Gobstones." Her eyes unfocused slightly as she gazed out through the rain-glazed window. "I was captain of the Hogwarts team, you know."

Severus felt his grin vanish as he watched his mother; thankfully, she had stopped mechanically stirring her tea, but her hand had fallen to her knee, where she absently pinched and worried a bit of her black skirt between her fingers. He thought he understood better than anyone how tempting it was to drift into a fog, lingering somewhere between past and present, to forget for just a few golden seconds what things were really like. But since he'd come home for the summer holidays, he'd noticed her slipping away with alarming frequency. Especially when his father was around.

Tobias Snape was not a patient man, possessed of a quick temper and the corrosive certainty that the world took undue pleasure in treating him poorly; the existence of magic, and its irreversible presence in the lives of his wife and son, was a particular affront in his eyes. He had not known what Eileen was when he married her, and though her wandwork was more than serviceable, he was not impressed; rather, he cringed and shouted when he witnessed her doing magic, even something as benign as a spell to scrub the pot from supper or mend a scraped knee.

Despite his father's prejudice, and like most of the wizarding world, Severus had experienced a childhood punctuated by sudden, erratic outpourings of magical power. Once, when commanded to finish a plate of unappealing boiled sprouts, the china had cracked in half without him touching it. When too much scotch injected scathing venom into his father's words, the remaining liquid in the bottle had a habit of turning to vinegar. There were even numerous occasions on which his father had hit his mother, only to have the offending hand break out in hives, or blister, or swell so as to be practically immobile. Though oddly satisfying to a young boy who couldn't even be sure he'd caused them, these miniature disasters only served to feed the black hatred of magic that Tobias nurtured within him.

It had been almost a month since the family had had such an incident (Tobias had called Eileen a useless bint, then taken a sip of his cooled tea, only to have it start boiling again inside of his mouth) when Severus received his Hogwarts letter. A tawny owl, flecked with snow, had given his bedroom window one sharp rap with its beak, and appraised him coolly as he unhooked the latch with shaking fingers. Though the creamy envelope itself was damp all over from the flurries, its contents were bone-dry.

He'd known it would come; he'd spent many dreamy afternoons lying beside Lily in warm patches of grass, fantasizing about this very bit of post, this one sheet of parchment confirming that they would be leaving the Muggle world, together. As Severus read through his acceptance letter, scarcely able to focus on the coils and loops of Deputy Headmistress Minerva McGonagall's immaculate script, apprehension tempered the hot, bubbling excitement rushing through him: what would his father say? He could imagine no prospect more distasteful to Tobias than his only child shipping off to boarding school to hone the abilities he so reviled in his wife.

Severus could only feel a cold sense of inevitability when he woke two days later to find that his father had run off in the middle of the night. He did not see Tobias again until after Christmas.

His father came and went as the years staggered on, and Eileen's vitality seemed to ebb and flow with his presence. By the time three years had passed, she had hollowed out into an even quieter, more withdrawn shade of herself, an open wound wrapped in thin skin.

Sitting here now, holding a teacup in brittle fingers and smiling vaguely, Eileen looked far older than her thirty-five years. Lily was watching her with palpable sadness shadowing her eyes; Severus thought she might be comparing Eileen to her own mother, who was every bit as beautiful and vivacious as Lily herself was fast becoming.

"What kind of biscuits are these?" Lily asked then, her voice brimming with forced brightness; though the air in the room had been steadily thickening with a horrid, leaden silence, her question felt almost like an interruption. Eileen seemed to remember where she was, her eyes focusing once more on her houseguest.

"Cinnamon, dear," she sighed, her voice thinned with sudden tiredness. Lily looked uneasy as she nodded, taking a timid bite of the misshapen cookie in her hand; Severus did the same. His mother's baking was normally quite good, but the biscuits tasted as though she'd forgotten something important. He smiled at Eileen nonetheless.

He was just gulping back a mouthful of dry crumbles, gently complimentary words forming on his tongue, when the front door slammed; it felt as though the entire house rattled, but that was nothing to the quivering that took instant hold of his insides. His father was home.

* * *

><p>Lily couldn't help but hear the door slam, loud as a sheet of granite cracking; but even more than that, she <em>felt<em> it. The entire room seemed to constrict. If she'd thought Eileen was pale before, it was nothing compared to how she looked now, as bluish white as milk puddled on slate. Severus was coughing on a bit of biscuit, the sound throbbing strangely through space that felt suddenly airless. A few more noises came from the entry: several heavy steps squeaking through water, a grunt, the _thunk thunk_ of two boots being tossed to the floor. Severus' mouth was clamped so tightly shut that his lips were colorless, and his eyes had gone glassy; she'd never before seen him look so sick.

Eileen stood slowly, her movements almost drowsy. Unfolded and drawn up to her full height, she looked more wispy and insubstantial than ever, dark billows of fabric hanging off her as though from a wire frame. Wordlessly, she bent to retrieve the teapot, and swept from the room with a surprising burst of speed. Lily glanced at Severus again, and was startled to find that he was staring at her; there was an anguish, almost a pleading look in his eyes that made her heart swell up into her throat.

"Having a tea party, are we?"

Lily heard the sneer in Tobias Snape's voice before she saw it, but even as she looked up at him she was stricken by the sheer depth of the unpleasantness in the man's face. This was Severus thirty years older, and a hundred times harder, the planes of his face like carvings in living marble. His mouth was cruel, twisted, and so thin that Lily wondered if he were even capable of smiling. He and Severus shared the exact same prominent nose, but above that, the difference was almost breathtakingly sharp; where Severus' eyes held the rich warmth of black coffee, Tobias' gaze looked as though it belonged to some feral wolf. Strikingly light and cold, his blue eyes swept over her with mild interest, and she had the sudden, fervent wish that she had a set of woolen robes to hide in.

"Who are you?" he barked, folding his arms across his faded grey work-shirt. The name _Tobias_ was stitched into a grimy badge over his heart. Severus had never mentioned where his father worked, but she had to assume he was employed at one of the several factories in town. To the dismay of everyone else in the house, it appeared he had decided to lunch at home this afternoon.

"I'm Lily," she said, the firmness in her voice taking even her by surprise. "Evans." She forced herself to look into his eyes, those chips of ice glinting above the valleys and gorges in his face. There was the sudden urge to flick her hair back, to fidget with the hem of her dress, to shift her attention some way, any way, but she pressed her lips into a smile and twisted her hands together in her lap. She could feel Severus radiating anxiety like body heat, and she knew she must be pleasant, and strong. For his sake.

"She's a friend. From school," Severus said quietly, followed immediately by the sound of him inhaling sharply. Lily's heart sank as she watched Tobias, knowing even this innocent remark was entirely the wrong thing to say. He became, as though it were possible, uglier, eyes narrowing to glittering slits.

"Oh, you go to that freak place too, then?" he snarled, rounding on her. Her stomach gave a nauseous twist at the word; it was Petunia's very favorite barb to spit out whenever Lily made the mistake of mentioning Hogwarts, or magic, or anything distinct from the Muggle world. At least, it _was_, before her sister's hatred of her became so great that she couldn't bear to speak to Lily at all. They'd not exchanged words beyond "pass the butter" since the summer after her first year.

Tobias took a step forward and it occurred to her that he was enormous, that he was powerful, and she was very, very small in comparison. He leaned over her to leer, the acrid smell of whiskey preceding his face in a sickly gust. She hoped he couldn't hear her gulp. He was a tyrant, and he was hateful, but she must be polite. But what could she say? Everything in her seemed to wither in fear when she realized that, if she said something to rile this beast of a man, Severus would surely pay for it once she left. She watched the man's lips curl back over his teeth, and her stomach turned over again. Perhaps he wouldn't even wait til she was gone.

"Yes," she managed to say calmly, and her every muscle felt unbearably tense with the effort of not shuddering, not springing to her feet and running home that very instant. She glanced over at Severus, poor Severus, who looked as though he may have forgotten how to breathe. His hands were gripping the arms of his chair so tightly that she knew his paper-white fingers would ache later.

"Severus is quite brilliant, you know," she found herself saying, the words tumbling out defiantly before she could stop them. Her mouth had gone so dry that she thought her tongue might fuse to the roof of her mouth if she allowed the two to touch. She watched as Tobias' hollowed cheeks went the reddish violet of a fresh bruise.

"Silly girl," he sneered, sending another puff of sour air wafting over her face. "Pretty thing like you shouldn't waste her time with a boy like him." Lily's eyes fluttered closed then, for just a second, as mingled anger and pity surged through her like an injection of poison; how could Severus' own father speak about him this way?

"Sev is my best friend," she retorted coldly. "Sir." His face twisted horribly in a way that suggested he was going to laugh, and then she was on her feet. She made the decision in the space of two thudding heartbeats.

"Come on, Sev, you can come for dinner at my place," she said sharply. Tobias had backed up a step in surprise when she'd shot out of her chair, and he was now watching her with a mixture of shock and dislike. She swallowed hard before she looked over at her friend. He seemed Petrified in place, his mouth hanging open just slightly, staring at her as though she had just sprouted wings. "_Sev_. It's all right. My mum would love to see you. Come on." Where this hard, steely confidence was coming from, she hadn't the faintest idea, but she was going to run with it as long as it lasted.

Tobias muttered something obscene under his breath, and that finally seemed to thaw Severus' frozen limbs. Lily held out her hand to him, wondering if he'd think it was odd, but he simply closed his fingers around hers, giving her a look of startled gratitude. They walked quickly from the room without another word, without glancing at Tobias or at one another. They paused only as they passed the kitchen, from which Severus' mother was just emerging, clutching a tray topped with a sandwich and a glass of something golden that was almost certainly not tea. There was a small cut on her hand that was still bleeding, hadn't even had the chance to scab over, and Lily had the sickening thought that Eileen might have cut herself in her haste not to keep her vile husband waiting.

"Thank you for having me, Mrs. Snape," Lily said, with all the kindness she could muster; though she knew Eileen was badly damaged, perhaps even more than her son, she couldn't help wanting to shake her. Rattle her teeth, dissipate the mournful fog that cloaked her. Surely there was _something_ to be done, to protect themselves from that terrifying man, with his lipless snarl and flammable breath. To protect Sev. She squeezed his hand, and felt him return the pressure. "Sev is coming over for a while."

For the first time that afternoon, Eileen looked suddenly alert. There was a small, weak spark deep at the back of her dark eyes, and though she said nothing, Lily felt oddly as though she were thanking her.


	6. In Which All Are Thoroughly Unimpressed

**Well, this turned out to be quite a bit longer than I anticipated. :P Enjoy! And remember: reviews are love :)**

**Disclaimer: All characters and places are JKR's, and only hers.**_  
><em>

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><p><em>26 October, 1974<em>

"Oh, Lil. No."

Marlene, seated on the low, broad sill of the window nearest her bed, let out something halfway between a laugh and a cough. She shook her head as she turned slightly, putting her face close to the narrow opening in the glass, and blew out a thick, white plume of smoke.

"No what?" Lily had been revolving slowly on the spot to glean her friend's approval of her outfit, but at this she stopped, feeling silly and defensive. She tugged at the bottom of her plain navy sweater, making certain it overlapped evenly with the waistband of her jeans. "What's wrong with this? I look good in blue!"

Marlene snorted and took a drag off of her cigarette. It was a Coyle's, some horrid flavored thing, so rather than tobacco, the slow tendrils spiraling up from the tip reeked of artificial vanilla. Lily had very little patience for this new habit of Marlene's. She'd taken it up sometime over the summer, and it was quite clear that she thought this made her unbearably interesting; mostly, at least in Lily's opinion, it just made her unbearable.

"You're going to have to wear something cuter than that if you want them to like you," Marlene said flatly, more ghostly wisps escaping from her mouth as she spoke. A regular feminist icon, that Marlene McKinnon. This time, she didn't turn to politely send her tainted breath out through the window; she let it drift lazily up and out from between her parted lips. "Crabbe's a sixth year, Wilkes and Rosier are in fifth...I mean, _Snape_ will think you look fantastic, but then again he'd trip all over himself even if you showed up in my gran's bathrobe."

"Why do I ever listen to you? About anything?" Lily grumbled, even as she ripped the sweater up over her head and stormed back to her trunk. She was thrilled to bits, honestly, that Severus had started hanging around with some of his housemates. Though she loved him dearly, being a person's only friend was a tremendous amount of responsibility. This was especially true for Lily, as it meant that she had to divide her time between him and people like Marlene, who flat-out refused to be dragged into another mixed-company trip to Hogsmeade.

But at the same time, something about the thought of meeting these older Slytherin boys made her stomach squirm unpleasantly. What if they didn't like her, what if they thought she was awkward or ugly or tedious? Or worse, what if she made such an awful impression that they decided they really didn't like _Sev_? She knew all too well the fragile, overeager feeling of nurturing a brand-new friendship: like watching the tender shoot of a plant poke through the earth, hoping you don't inadvertently starve or drown it.

As she dug through the unfolded heap of clothing spilling out of her trunk, she heard Marlene gag in her attempt to stifle a coughing fit. Lily bit her lip to contain a bubble of laughter, mastering the urge to turn around, and focused on trying to find a more suitable top to wear. The day was sunny, and it was not yet cold enough for thick wool, but the air carried a sufficient chill to rule out anything too breezy.

Three minutes later, she'd chosen and donned a fitted black blouse; it nipped in at her waist and skimmed in close along the low swell of her bust. She had the vague notion that it was rather tight, but it was just a blouse, after all. Nothing objectionable about that. Marlene was smirking, her mostly ignored cigarette burned down to a nub between her fingers.

"You are a right slag. I'm so proud." She gave an approving nod as she finally stubbed the filthy thing out on the stones beside her. Lily rolled her eyes and stepped up to the mirror on the wall, pulling her hair to the side and beginning to braid it.

"Let's not get on the subject of who's a slag, Marlie." Lily wove her hair together quickly, then pantomimed taking an immense drag from an imaginary cigarette. "_Oh, wotcher, Sirius, do you find my smoking intriguing? I'm terribly rebellious, you know_." She wound a hairband around the end of the braid several times before letting it swing back behind her shoulder. "It's going to take more than a bit of that rubbish to get his attention." She glanced sideways at Marlene, and felt instantly guilty. That might've been something of a low blow.

Marlene huffed, not looking at Lily, and leaned back against the windowpane, visibly stiffening as her bare shoulders made contact with the chilly glass; she was still wearing the camisole she'd slept in. She made a show of closely examining her fingernails, eyes narrowed.

"He's taking Melody Carraway," she remarked, her tone far too casual to match her rigid posture. The lightest hint of pink crept over her cheekbones. "To Hogsmeade, I mean."

Lily groaned, a show of solidarity with her friend, all too glad to gloss over her previous comment. Melody was a Hufflepuff in their year, widely considered to be both intellectually dim and sexually adventurous. Rather the dream combination for a fourteen-year-old boy, Lily had to assume.

"Speaking of slags," she muttered, and was mollified to see her friend's lips twitch towards a smile.

"Why are you so nervous to meet them, anyway?" Marlene asked suddenly. The forced casual tone had fallen away, and when she finally transferred her gaze from her nails to Lily, she was arching one meticulously-shaped eyebrow. "Who _cares_ what some ruddy Slytherins think about you?"

"I don't-" Lily sighed deeply, not sure how to articulate herself to Marlene. Not sure how to articulate herself, period, if she was perfectly honest. "I just...don't want to muck things up for Sev. He's only just getting to know them himself, really."

Marlene tilted her head slightly as she appraised Lily, a long moment of silent consideration stretching out between them. Though Lily struggled to keep her face blank, Marlene must've glimpsed something there that pleased her; her mouth tilted into a smirk that was almost feline, and she hitched her knees up under her chin, hugging her skinny legs.

"Ah, yes. _Sev_." There was a knowing sort of glint in her eyes that Lily did not particularly care for. "I suppose the real question is, does _Sev _like slaggy black shirts?"

Lily's lips were parting, ready to protest, but her voice was extinguished in the sudden, inexplicable tingling that washed through her at Marlene's words. She wondered idly if this was what electrocution was like, but surely it wouldn't feel as strangely pleasant as the sizzling warmth that was flashing through her abdomen.

Of course she cared what Sev thought about her. He was kind, and smart, and badly in need of someone to take care of him; how could she find herself equal to the task if he didn't? She figured she knew what Marlene was hinting at, but even brushing tentatively against the thought in her mind made that bizarre heat surge though her again, and she felt something hard and steely rise into her voice.

"Don't be ridiculous," Lily snapped, stalking back to her trunk and snatching up her jacket. She pulled it on quickly, and though she'd worn it for years, she found herself fumbling with the buttons. Her clumsy fingers were betraying her, so she decided to leave the jacket hanging open for the time being, looping a wine-colored scarf around her neck. The simmering was still there, and now it was steadily creeping up to her face, heating her cheeks and sending blood thundering to her ears. She was bursting with the need to say something decisive and cutting, to let Marlene know she hadn't gotten to her, but she could think of nothing that would fit that description.

She pulled open the drawer of her nightstand and grabbed several Sickles, enough at least for a few butterbeers and a new quill. Clutching the handful of cool metal was oddly calming, and she held onto the money as she slid her fist into her pocket. When she looked back at Marlene, the other girl was winding a limp blonde curl around her finger, eyeing it with a frown.

"So you're just going to mope around here all day? You're skipping Hogsmeade altogether?" Lily finally asked, her tone clipped.

"You'll be off cozying up to the snakes, Em's gone with some dopey bloke from her House..." Marlene's eyes flashed as they flicked to meet hers. "And I've no desire to see that _tosser_ mashing his stupid, spotty face against Melody's, thanks." Lily's gut gave an uncomfortable twist, and regret over her sniping about Sirius quite eclipsed any lingering irritation towards her friend.

"They'll have split by Monday," Lily said bracingly, though Marlene's scowl warned against trying any encouraging smiles. Her hands having regained some of their deftness, she swiftly finished buttoning her jacket. "I'll see you later, then."

Marlene said nothing, giving a curt nod and reaching for the bright yellow packet of cigarettes on the floor below her dangling feet. Lily rolled her eyes but couldn't help but smile. Practice makes perfect, after all. Resisting the urge to advise her friend to grab a glass of water before she coughed herself sick, she crossed to the door and swung it open.

"Nick me a butterbeer!" Marlene shouted after her.

* * *

><p>Lily noted, with deep, fervent regret, that she had been very wrong about the weather. The sun had ducked behind a steely curtain of cloud halfway through her walk to the village, and the air had turned from pleasantly cool and breezy to a brutal, face-chapping gust. She shivered resentfully and crossed her arms over her thin jacket, thankful she had at least opted for the scarf.<p>

There had been quite a bit of heavy rain a few days before the weekend, and the streets of Hogsmeade were still only half-dried, with mud and dead leaves streaking the cobblestones. Lily made her way carefully to the Three Broomsticks, dodging clusters of laughing students and trying to avoid the worst of the mess on the ground, as she'd completely forgotten her jeans needed hemming. Despite her best efforts, the bottoms of her pants were ringed with wet dirt by the time she stomped up to the pub's front step and tugged open the door.

Her cold cheeks stung pleasantly with the warmth that greeted her, and she drew in a deep breath, savoring the scents of dust, pipe tobacco, and ale-soaked wood. There was something oddly comforting about the environment of a pub: dark, gleaming tables and chairs; the winking glint of brass below the dripping taps; just enough smoke cloaking the ceiling to make the lighting murky and soft. She was reminded of the Shorn Sheep, a pub just down the street at home, where she and her father used to eat fish and chips every Thursday for supper. Petunia and her mother were forever complaining about the greasiness of the food and the alarming stickiness of the tabletops, so they preferred not to join them. Lily didn't mind in the least: it became a kind of tradition between she and her father, a weekly date of sorts. Those outings were one of the things she missed most dearly while at Hogwarts.

Peering through the dimness, Lily's eyes strained in search of Severus. In a back corner, huddled over a table strewn with brightly colored packages, she glimpsed Remus Lupin's sandy head, bent close to the rumpled, inky mop that could only belong to James Potter. She needn't have worried about them noticing her, hovering awkwardly near the door; the two were muttering over a large expanse of parchment, each pointing to various items on the sheet and nibbling at a large bar of Honeydukes chocolate.

"Lily!"

Almost startled to hear Severus calling her, she looked around in mingled surprise and relief. She soon spotted him, seated at a table in the opposite corner of the pub, and grinned reflexively at the sunny smile on his face. As she approached, she got a better look at the two boys sitting with Sev: one, unfamiliar but handsome, save for the penetrating coldness of his eyes; the other, Thomas Crabbe, Slytherin Quidditch Captain, loomed over her friend like a particularly disagreeable-looking hunk of granite.

She'd never spoken to the boy before, but he had amassed quite a bit of notoriety the previous school year when he'd put one of Ravenclaw's Chasers in the hospital wing; she'd taken a Bludger straight to the mouth, and it took a solid two weeks just to regrow her teeth, never mind getting them to look as they did before. Lily gave an involuntary shiver as she remembered passing her in the hall a few months later; the girl had smiled at her, but her lips had been pressed together so tightly that they looked white.

It was then that Lily remembered to be nervous.

* * *

><p>"I'll just grab us some refills, shall I?" Lily shot to her feet so quickly that her chair skidded out behind her, grinding loudly against the uneven stone floor. Severus grimaced, humiliation and panic prickling hotly along his skin; he leaned forward and tried to catch Lily's eye, but she was staring down at the table, red-cheeked and tight-lipped. She snatched up the four empty mugs, fumbling with them slightly as she wound her fingers through the handles, and stalked off towards the bar without another word.<p>

"What's got her knickers in a twist?" Edward Wilkes asked, sounding almost bored as he worked a bit of dirt out from beneath his thumbnail. "Cokeworth _is_ a rubbish little Muggle town. No offense, Snape."

Severus would've liked very much to say that he did, in fact, take offense to such an offhand dismissal of his home, but Crabbe rumbled his agreement, and the words withered in his throat. He nodded jerkily and sank back in his seat, feeling deflated.

He had to admit, this little outing was not going at all as he had hoped. Lily was sweet and bubbly as ever, of course, and beautiful to the point of distraction in her tight black shirt; his friends, however, did not seem taken by her charms. Crabbe had scarcely spoken a word in the twenty minutes since she'd arrived; as for Wilkes, it probably would've been better for all of them if he had followed Crabbe's lead.

Severus had been so cautious not to bring up her magical heritage when he'd worked out this meeting with the others, but he supposed it was rather foolish to assume the topic could be avoided altogether. His drunken row with Nott last Christmas was, after all, rather public knowledge in Slytherin House.

There had been a good five minutes or so of pleasantness, at first. Lily had introduced herself with one of her blindingly bright smiles, and Severus' mouth had promptly gone dry, transfixed by the way the candlelight reflected in the wavy mirror of her hair. Crabbe was about as friendly as he ever was, grunting his name with a nod in her direction. Wilkes dragged appreciative eyes up and down her figure, smirking, as he greeted her with a voice so slick it oozed. Pleasantries were exchanged, and a first round of hot butterbeer purchased, before things began to go south.

"So. Evans, eh?" Wilkes had continued to smirk, and his tone was pleasant, but his eyes had sharpened, a curiously hungry look stealing over his face. "I've not heard that name around Hogwarts much. What House were your parents in?" Lily kept her features level, but even the utmost control couldn't stop the pink glow radiating outwards across her cheeks.

"None." Her voice was steady, Severus had noted with no small amount of admiration. She smiled slightly, her hands curling around her mug; the movement would have looked natural, if not for the way the skin whitened and stretched over her knuckles. "I'm the first witch in my family."

Until that moment, Severus had not really understood what it meant to hear silence roar, but he could think of no other way to describe the thick, voiceless vacuum that swallowed the group at her words. The other noises of the pub faded: students laughing, ceramic mugs striking tabletops, the snap of Rosmerta shoving the till shut. Everything became instantly dulled, smooth and grey in the background.

"I see," Wilkes had replied, his oily voice sliding into the void. Those two words were detached and icy, though they were nothing compared to the glittering of his eyes. "How very interesting that must be for you."

The subject was closed after that, though there was a dark, nasty undercurrent to the questions Wilkes posed to Lily afterwards. It was a tremendous credit to her poise that she did not let the subtext of the discussion rile her; at least, not at first. When Wilkes asked what her father did for a living, Lily calmly replied that he was an accountant. When asked whether she had any siblings, Severus thought he saw her jaw tighten, but she answered as sweetly as ever that she had, one sister. And on things went in that vein, until Wilkes simply couldn't help himself from being snide, when presented with the knowledge that Lily hailed from a dreary sort of industrial town in the north, and Lily had stormed off to the bar.

"I should...I should go after her," Severus mumbled finally, standing up; Crabbe only stared at him, looking somewhat disapproving and thoroughly unmoved. Wilkes snorted.

"What for? She's fine, I was just joking," he said dismissively, but he was smirking yet again in clear amusement. "Tell her I'll take mine cold this time."

When Severus found her, Lily was leaning on the bar, four fresh drinks in front of her. Her back was straight as an iron rod, and her eyes were fastened on something only she could see, a sure sign that she was turning something over in her mind. She ran her thumb absently up and down along the handle of the nearest mug, but she stopped when Severus laid a hand gently on her forearm.

"Wilkes is a git, but he didn't mean anything by it," Severus said softly, though the words sounded hollow even to his own ears. "Any of it."

Lily gave her head the tiniest shake, and looked up at him; as always, bearing the full force of her green eyes stole the breath from his lungs. Despite the guilt and concern that were warring painfully in the pit of his stomach, he couldn't stem the flow of shimmering warmth, winding and swirling out from a place behind his ribs and down through his belly. Lily Evans, able to root him to the spot with a glance, and utterly innocent of that knowledge. He snatched his hand back from her arm, as though through it she would somehow sense the lovely, fizzy heat cycling through him. She held his eyes for an interminably long moment.

"I don't appreciate being looked at like a dog that's learned to talk," she said slowly, as though selecting each syllable with decisive care. "Whatever kind of blood I have, it's no one's business but mine." His surprise must have shown on his face, because she raised her eyebrows slightly; they seemed to be asking him whether he thought she was really so thick that she wouldn't have picked up on the reason behind his friends' tepid reception. He scrambled for the proper response, guilt crawling hotly up his throat like bile.

"They don't think of you as a talking dog!" he protested, knowing even as he spoke that he was not helping matters at all. "They just – there aren't a lot of Muggleborns in Slytherin, it's more curiosity than any-"

"You and I both know that's not true," she snapped, unlocking her gaze from his, back to the tankard at her fingertips. She traced the handle again, and took a shuddering breath before continuing. She addressed the mug: unable, Severus supposed, to even look at him.

"Marlene was rude to you the first time you met." She was spitting the words out as though they tasted bitter. She paused, eyelids fluttering closed, drawing another strained breath. "I'll give you this one. But if I have to share you with them, you are going to instruct them on how to treat me like a proper human being." She whipped suddenly around, stepping so close to him that he reeled slightly. She smelled like vanilla and something burnt, and he was reasonably certain that his heart had collapsed in on itself.

"If I have to sit through another humiliating interview like that again, I will _not _take it this well." Her breath brushed against his face, and he fought not to visibly shiver, not quite sure whether his sudden dizziness was due to his own shame or her proximity. "I mean it. I want you to get along with them, but I'm not going to have it happen at my expense."

He knew she was right, and he knew he should have been feeling and saying any number of guilty, profusely apologetic things, but how could he do any of that when he could barely breathe? Perhaps if she wasn't so bloody beautiful, with her eyes narrowed and her cheeks flushed and that infernal scent coming off of her, perhaps then he could actually concentrate. He gulped so loudly he knew she had to have heard it.

"All right," he gasped out, knees weak. "I – all right. I'll – yes." He stepped back from her, steadying himself with a hand on the edge of the bar. "Got it." Lily looked satisfied, and nodded.

"All right, then." She swiftly grabbed one of the butterbeers and took a long drink from it. "Now, if you don't mind, I am going to finish this drink, here, at the bar. And you are going to go tell Thomas and _dear_ Edward how not to act like complete prats around me." She gave him a hard look. "Right?"

Severus managed to mumble something that resembled the word "yes", scooping up the remaining drinks, and then he was walking dazedly back to the corner table, feeling as though he'd just fallen off of a broom.

* * *

><p>Lily could feel the three pairs of eyes tracing up and down her spine, but she didn't care. She still had a third of a drink in front of her, and the nearer she got to the bottom of it, the less she felt like rejoining Severus and the others.<p>

The strangest thing, in her opinion, was that she was not altogether angry. She had no illusions about her usual temperament: she knew she was a walking stereotype, the bossy, hotheaded girl with red hair. For goodness' sake, hadn't she nearly hexed Potter on numerous occasions for merely having the gall to annoy her? She was always jumping up shouting and storming from the room for one reason or another; hair trigger, and all that. Her mother called it her tragic flaw.

So why, when Severus' housemates had just regarded her with nothing but mortifyingly ill-disguised contempt, did her muscles not feel like coiled springs, ready to snap out of her skin at any second? Why hadn't she called Wilkes a tosser and gone right out the door, seething?

The thing of it was, she really, truly was not sure. Maybe she had somehow developed stunning self-control without knowing it, and the instant she walked out of the Three Broomsticks she'd be nearly flattened with the weight of her rage. She contemplated the last few lukewarm sips of her butterbeer, watching the lacy remnants of foam melting away, and realized with dawning horror that her eyes were watering.

For once in her life, Lily Evans was too hurt to even be angry.

She blinked quickly, tilting her head back just slightly, willing the tears to disappear back from whence they came. Her throat felt as though it were closing up; swallowing was almost choking. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

"Hi, Lily!"

Lily was so surprised that she turned to her right without thinking, belatedly hoping that she'd managed to look somewhat composed. Peter Pettigrew was standing beside her and grinning, round face bitten pink by the wind, with his fine blond hair looking distinctly ruffled. Even in her pitiful stupor, she still had to bite back a giggle when she noticed that his pockets were literally overflowing with neon-wrapped packages from Zonko's. He was childish glee in human form.

"Hi, Peter," she said with a small smile. She resisted the urge to dab at the corner of her eye. "Looks like you've been busy."

"Oh, I have! Have a look at these!" Peter's face lit with an enormous grin, and he plunged one hand into the mass of bright cellophane jutting out the left side of his coat. He drew out something wrapped in traffic-cone orange, promptly sending three or four smaller items cascading to the floor.

"Oops!" he exclaimed breathlessly, bending to scoop them back up; unfortunately, with this motion several more packets shot out of his pockets, and soon a dozen of Zonko's finest gags were littered at their feet. To her own surprise, Lily found herself laughing as she bent down to help him.

"Did they have to restock after you left?" she asked with a grin, quite forgetting to feel sorry for herself. Peter may have blushed, but with his cheeks so chapped, it was hard to tell. She looked curiously at his purchases as she gathered them: the usual stink pellets and dungbombs, two different brands of miniature firecrackers, plasticized versions of various bodily fluids. There was even a small bottle of brilliant blue liquid, the label of which claimed one drop of the solution would numb a victim's tongue for an entire week, guaranteed. They both stood up, and she handed him a handful of his packages.

"Pretty impressive collection, Pete." His chest swelled with pride.

"Thanks! I can't wait to show the lads some of these. I reckon they didn't even _notice_ the vomit when they were in there!" he burst out, his expression pure rapture. It was so warm and endearing that she found herself relaxing muscles she hadn't even realized were tensed, all thoughts of Slytherins and their prejudices driven from her mind.

"Say, why don't you come sit with us?" he asked suddenly. "I think James grabbed a back table, there's plenty of room!"

Lily already knew exactly where Remus and Potter were sitting, and her eyes flicked to the corner, where they were still poring over what she realized was some kind of map. Remus she could understand, as he was one of the top students in Gryffindor, but why on _earth_ was James Potter doing homework in Hogsmeade? She looked back at Peter, who was watching her expectantly. More to the point, why would he invite her to go with him to join them?

She'd never made her dislike of Potter and Black anything but utterly plain, and though Remus was pleasant in a stodgy, beige sort of way, she certainly couldn't see herself just popping on over for a chat. The suggestion was honestly a bit preposterous. Even more surprising was the genuine, open smile on Peter's face. None of _them _cared whether her parents had gone to Hogwarts; they were housemates, so why shouldn't she have a drink with them? To him, inviting her must have seemed like the perfectly obvious thing to do.

But the lump in her throat returned, and a cold wash of misery shot through her. Even if she didn't despise Potter, even if she would only be going over to sit with Peter and Remus, she just couldn't. Not when she'd already abandoned Severus. He might not see it as a complete rejection, given the afternoon's events thus far, but it certainly wouldn't improve the situation, in any case.

"Oh, Peter, thanks," she replied, realizing that she actually meant it. "But I've got to be going, I still have a few things to pick up at Scrivenshaft's." To her continuing surprise, he looked a bit disappointed. "You can...you can tell the others I said hello." She doubted very much whether Potter would acknowledge or appreciate this, but it seemed the right thing to say. "See you later."

As Lily shoved her way out through the door, tucking her chin down into the folds of her scarf, she shivered, suddenly wishing she didn't have to walk back to school alone.


	7. In Which Invitations Are Issued

**Wellp. I was writing this chapter, and it started getting a little long, and I hadn't even gotten to the part I intended to write in the first place...so I've split it into two. Second part will be up in a few days. :)**

**As always, I own nothing. And reviews are love.**_  
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><p><em>3 December 1974<em>

"Marlie, for Merlin's sake!" Lily gasped, snatching up her goblet just in time; the other girl had jabbed her spoon so viciously into her porridge that the bowl had shot across the table into Lily's place setting. "You know, whatever your breakfast did to offend you, I'm sure it's very sorry."

Marlene's sole response was a contemptuous scowl. She retrieved her wayward dish in silence, and resumed poking unenthusiastically at her food. Lily sighed, topping her toast with a thick smear of marmalade. Though Marlene would sooner shave her head than state aloud what was bothering her, it was painfully obvious; at least, it was to Lily. Not ten meters away, Sirius and Melody Carraway were engaged in their third breakfast together that week, though frankly it was a bit of a stretch to call what they were doing _eating_: they'd managed to shove both their bodies into a space scarcely large enough for one person, and were enthusiastically doing things with their mouths that had very little to do with food.

Lily wasn't entirely clear on the rules regarding students dining at other House tables, never having navigated the stormy seas of inter-House dating herself, but since breakfast was a bit of a disjointed, come-when-you-please affair, she supposed no one was paying all that much attention to the fact that Sirius was currently seated at the Hufflepuff table. That is, no one besides Marlene.

"Reckon she's been getting pointers from the giant squid?" Lily muttered, hoping to draw Marlene out of her unsettling silence. The comment wasn't without its accuracies, either; the way Sirius and Melody were wrapped up in one another, they resembled nothing so much as a many-limbed creature draped in Hogwarts robes.

"Lily," Marlene said warningly. "Don't." She gave her a pointed glare as she shoveled a meager spoonful of porridge into her mouth, then grimaced; with all of that poking around, Lily had to assume that her breakfast had long since gone cold. The other girl took a long gulp of juice and shrugged. "Sirius Black has all the taste of a blind house-elf. I have nothing more to say on the matter."

Lily was just considering spouting off some well-worn platitude about the fish population of the proverbial sea, when her tawny owl Athena swooped down low along the table and stuck a rather wobbly landing atop the nearest pitcher of orange juice. Righting herself, she gave a strangled sort of hoot around the letter in her beak; she'd clamped so hard onto the edge of it that the whole thing was bending down the middle.

"You daft thing, give it here before you ruin it!" Lily groaned, snatching the mangled post from her pet. There was thankfully very little damage, save for some crimping along the far side of the deep green envelope. Lily's name was inked across the front in gold, the handwriting an unfamiliar but impeccable script. Turning it over, she was surprised to see a wax seal, also green, stamped with the crest of Slytherin House.

"What's that?" Marlene demanded, leaning forward over her largely uneaten breakfast. Lily shrugged, and was just sliding her finger along the underside of the flap, when something large and heavy struck her square between the shoulder-blades with enough force to take her breath away, sending her reeling into the food in front of her.

"Bloody _hell_!" she choked out, wheeling around in her seat. James Potter was standing directly behind her, looking sheepish as he attempted to shift what she had to assume was the offending rucksack around to his other side.

"Sorry, Evans, really!" His tone and expression seemed genuinely apologetic, which was somewhat perplexing. But not as perplexing as the fact that _James Potter_ was toting around a schoolbag, clearly stuffed full of textbooks, to breakfast; she'd never seen him bring so much as a quill into the Great Hall with him.

"What are you _doing_?" she snapped, wiping her right hand off in her napkin; in her effort not to smack face-first into the table during their collision, she'd gone wrist-deep into a plate of scrambled eggs. "Schoolwork at breakfast? I didn't think you were the multi-tasking sort, Potter."

"I really didn't mean to, I swear," he said earnestly. "Are you all right?" If Lily hadn't been so certain that Potter didn't give a jot about the dull ache at the center of her back, she might have thought he actually seemed anxious.

"I'm fine," Lily huffed, balling up her dirty napkin and lobbing it at his chest with a glare. "Look where you're going next time, though." Potter nodded, features slackening in a well-crafted approximation of relief, before his gaze slipped past her to something farther into the Hall. His mouth tilted suddenly and unmistakably into a frown of displeasure. Lily turned to follow his line of sight, and to her surprise, found herself greeted by another entirely-too-public snogging session between Sirius and Melody.

"Not a fan?" she asked as she faced Potter once more. His eyes had narrowed, and he heaved the strap of his rucksack up further on his shoulder, shifting his feet awkwardly as he redistributed the weight.

"You could say that," he said flatly. "He's too busy sucking face to help much-" Potter's voice cut off abruptly, and his eyes hardened behind the round frames of his glasses, lips pressing together instantly as though he'd said something he shouldn't have. One of his hands went directly to his bag, resting on top of it in an almost protective fashion. Lily surveyed him curiously, and realized with a distant flicker of shock that she was smiling in spite of herself.

"Don't tell me you've gone all scholastic on us, Potter," she said with a slight laugh. "What, is he tutoring you now? I'd think Remus would be the obvious choice for something like that."

"It's nothing, Evans, but thanks for your input," he said shortly, sounding suddenly irritated. If she wasn't mistaken, a distinct flush was creeping in from his neck and the tips of his ears. "Ta." And just as quickly as he'd appeared, he strode off at a brisk pace, rucksack swinging awkwardly at his side.

It dawned on Lily that her mouth was hanging open, and she closed it with a snap, feeling her own cheeks reddening. She slid back around in her seat, knowing before she even looked up that Marlene would be staring at her.

"Well, that was-"

"-dead rude of him," Marlene tutted, but she was looking a bit more cheerful than she'd been throughout the entire meal. As always, Lily's encounters with Potter were a source of endless amusement to the other girl.

"Sorry I didn't get around to calling him a prat, I know how you love it when I do that," Lily said dryly. Marlene managed to crack an actual smile at that, and Lily was quite grateful to have distracted her; Sirius and Melody were finally walking away from the Hufflepuff table, holding hands, their flushed faces beaming like the sun.

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><p>"'This invitation entitles the bearer to the accompaniment of one additional guest of any age or House affiliation' – kind of a long-winded way of saying you're to bring dates, isn't it?" Emmeline rolled her eyes as she set the small green card on the table beside her Defense Against the Dark Arts book; the embossed edges of the invitation, colored with the same golden ink as the front of the envelope, gleamed in the dim lighting of the library's many oil lamps. "Slughorn certainly has a flair for the theatrical."<p>

Lily, who had been leafing distractedly through her notes on the Imperius Curse, felt her stomach contract at Emmeline's words.

"That's a bit strong, don't you think?" she said quickly, her mouth gone dry. "'Dates'...that's kind of – well, it's not as though you _have to_ -" Emmeline gave her a sympathetic look.

"Of course not, Lily, it's not as though he can force you to bring someone. And as a matter of fact..." She paused, tilting her head slightly as she appraised her friend. "Are you even sure you want to go? It's not as though you've never declined an invite from Slughorn before."

Lily noted miserably that her face was growing hot, but leaning back in her chair, away from the lamps, perhaps it wasn't noticeable. Emmeline was right, of course; Slughorn had been practically begging her to meet with his after-hours club for what seemed like ages, but she'd always rebuffed him with polite lies about study groups and stomachaches. Unfortunately for her, however, she was beginning to run out of plausible excuses: her claim last spring that she was training to be a junior mediwizard on the Quidditch sidelines had been soundly debunked when the first game of the following school year saw her cheering from the stands, having completely forgotten that particular fib.

"I dunno, I think I've mostly exhausted my supply of creative excuses," she admitted, feeling a bit guilty. "He's asked so many times, I ought to at least show up once. And it'll be Christmas, it could be fun, couldn't it?" And suddenly she broke out into a grin, relief slackening the tension in her shoulders. "Em, you can come with me!" The other girl froze, halfway through turning a page in _The Dark Forces: A Guide to Self-Protection_.

"Oh, Lil," she sighed, and the relief evaporated, leaving Lily's stomach twisting itself into knots once again. "You know I would, but, well..." Emmeline looked as though she too might be blushing, but it was hard to tell in the limited light. "Caradoc's already asked me." Lily goggled at her. "His mother runs Skele-Gro now, Slughorn was quite eager to snap him up."

"But the invitations only came out this morning!" Now she was _certain_ that Emmeline was blushing.

"Yes, well, I suppose he must actually fancy me, then," she said loftily, leaning forward and making a show of giving her full attention to her textbook.

"You know I didn't mean it like that," Lily protested, swatting Emmeline on the arm with the tufted end of her quill. "It's just that, well-" Her voice shrank to match the knot in her abdomen. "Who can I go with, then?" Emmeline raised an eyebrow, smirking in a way that eerily suggested she was channeling Marlene.

"I'm sure Potter wouldn't say no to getting a peek at you in your dress robes," she said innocently, as though the idea weren't completely preposterous. Lily scowled, and Emmeline held up her hands in surrender. "I'm joking, of course. We both know how absolutely _foul_ he is." Her voice was fairly dripping with sarcasm.

"He _is_ foul," Lily insisted, still frowning. "And you're not as funny as you think you are."

"All right," Emmeline relented, rolling her eyes heavenward. "Then I'd think your solution is obvious." A queer mix of dread and giddiness bled through Lily, as she thought she knew what was coming next.

"You could invite Snape."

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><p>"Sev! Sev, wait up!"<p>

As ever, Lily's voice shot straight through him like a bolt of lightning, waking his every nerve with instant, fizzing warmth. He stopped his trek towards the Entrance Hall and turned to the sound, letting other students jostle past him; at his side, Wilkes halted as well, but not before letting out a dramatic sigh.

"It's crowded enough that we could've pretended we didn't hear her, you know," he drawled, crossing his arms over his chest and managing to look simultaneously bored and irritated.

"Go ahead to dinner then, save me a seat," Severus replied distractedly, scanning the crowd; Lily's flaming hair wasn't difficult to spot, bobbing towards him behind a knot of slow-moving fifth year girls. Wilkes gave another heavy sigh and strode off, swallowed quickly within the crowd.

Lily reached him a moment later, clutching a small stack of textbooks to her chest. She was smiling from between the twin curtains of her hair, eyes bright as new leaves.

"Hi!" She sounded somewhat breathless, and he couldn't suppress a gentle laugh.

"Run all the way from Gryffindor Tower, have you?" She shook her head, and the very tip of her tongue darted out to moisten her lips.

"No, no, I-" She stopped, eyes unfocusing slightly as she seemed to struggle to string her words together. "I've got...something to ask you."

Something in her face made his stomach do a number of cartwheels; she latched her gaze intently onto his. The fingers of one hand were sliding absently up and down the binding of her Charms text, and for a moment she seemed almost to be clinging to her burden, rather than merely carrying it.

"Well, go on," he blurted, heart knocking against his ribs. Her expression, her posture, the delicate tremor in her voice, all did absolutely nothing to indicate whether the question would be something unpleasant or something wonderful. He couldn't recall ever seeing her look so uncertain, poised as though on the brink of some dizzying leap.

"Right," she said faintly, nodding. She swayed slightly on the spot, blinking, and drew in such a deep breath that she almost seemed to grow taller. "Well, Slughorn is having a Christmas party, and I'm to bring a guest if I want, so I was wondering...would you want to go with me?"

It was then that he realized she was nervous, actually _nervous_, but he couldn't expend much effort mulling over this astonishing fact, as his body was currently sublimating into a giddy swell of mist, or a cloud made of light. Lily Evans wanted him to be her _date_. If he were still encased in human flesh, he was certain his mouth would have gone utterly dry, but dreamy swirls of fog didn't have mouths.

"Of course!" He heard his own voice respond, surprisingly sturdy, issuing from the spot where his face had been. The twin bright spots on her cheeks flamed even redder, but then she was giving him a wavering smile and nodding in apparent relief and he was certain that he was going to float up to the ceiling and burst.

"Oh-okay," she exhaled, shifting her books against her so that she was hugging them tighter than ever. "It's this weekend." He could scarcely understand what she was saying, thoroughly preoccupied by the delicious twinges of heat spiraling out from somewhere behind his navel. He thought she might have mentioned something about dress robes, which he most assuredly did not own, but he felt oddly confident that particular detail would work itself out. What was important was _her, _what _she_ would wear that night...perhaps something the color of pine that shimmered when she moved, with her arm linked through his, laughing at something he had said...

"...all right?" She was asking him something now, and he fought to tether himself back to earth and rejoin their conversation, hoping his absence hadn't been noticed. She was watching him expectantly.

"S-sorry?"

A high-pitched giggle that he had never heard before shot out of her mouth, and the sound of it seemed to startle her, too; one of her hands made a quick motion towards her face, as though hoping to shove the laughter back from whence it came.

"I just said...you should be ready by seven on Saturday, I'll meet you at the dungeon stairs." Her face was now a bright, uniform red; she looked as strangely warm as he felt. He found himself nodding and murmuring some jumbled noises of assent, and with another quick nod and a breathier version of that bizarre laugh she pushed past him and melted away into the throng surrounding them.

When he caught up with Wilkes, the other boy asked what Evans had wanted, but Severus found himself utterly unable to speak through a grin so broad it made his face ache.


End file.
